Quality care focuses on patient concerns

You can’t open a professional publication or attend a meeting without hearing about patient-centered care. But settling on a working definition is difficult.

Part of the problem is that the term has been diluted, says John Wasson, MD, a physician and professor at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, NH, and a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Too often, he says, it refers to hitting certain process-related targets rather than focusing on what the patient needs.